Pennsylvania: ACLU seeks info on Pennsylvania voter roll purge | Associated Press

A civil-rights group raised questions Tuesday about Pennsylvania’s participation in a program designed to help purge voters with duplicate registrations in different states. Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said state officials have rebuffed his requests for details about how rigorously state officials will oversee the purging of voter rolls under the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. “Cleaning voter-registration rolls of inaccurate and duplicate information is important, but it must be achieved in a way that does not improperly or wrongly purge voters from the rolls,” Walczak said in a letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele.

Florida: State takes its time with lists of suspected ineligible voters | The News-Press

Seven months after Gov. Rick Scott announced a new purge of Florida’s voting rolls, county supervisors of elections are still waiting for the state to provide them with lists of suspected ineligible voters. The purge isn’t on hold, the state just isn’t in a hurry. “We do not have a set timeline to start the proposed process,” Florida Department of State spokeswoman Brittany Lesser said Friday. Meanwhile, midterm elections and Scott’s bid for a second term approach. It’s too late for such a purge to affect Southwest Florida’s special election to fill Trey Radel’s congressional seat. Radel resigned Jan. 27 after pleading guilty to cocaine possession and serving a stint in rehab. Ineligible voters would have to be removed by 90 days before a federal election, according to federal law.

Iowa: Judge strikes down Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s voter purge efforts | Omaha World Herald

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz did not have the authority to create a new rule aimed at ridding voter registration rolls of voters who didn’t appear to be U.S. citizens, a judge said Wednesday. Polk County Judge Scott Rosenberg ordered the rule stricken and said Iowa’s secretary of state is “enjoined from taking any action” pursuant to the rule. Rosenberg gave a victory to the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, which sued Schultz over the rule, saying it could intimidate or unfairly deny votes to immigrants. Schultz tried to pass it as an emergency rule just before the November 2012 general election. Another judge halted the rule before the election, concluding that it created confusion and mistrust in the voter registration process.

New Hampshire: 8,200 Manchester residents could be cut from voter rolls | Union Leader

Officials in the Queen City could remove up to 8,200 people from its voter rolls in the coming months as part of a citywide “checklist verification” process. Starting on Thursday, the Office of the City Clerk will send postcards to 8,200 residents who have not voted according to its records since the 2008 election. City Clerk Matt Normand said the goal was to keep the voter list as up to date as possible to avoid a large and complicated state-mandated purge in 2020. “Periodic verification avoids a major purge of tens of thousands of voters during the state-mandated 10-year checklist purge, which stresses the office and ward officials for those looking to re-register once in any of the subsequent eight citywide elections held at Manchester polls,” Normand said in a statement announcing the move.

Florida: Voter Purge 2.0 | Pensacola News Journal

Sparking howls from Democrats and the NAACP, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said last week that his office soon would begin Voter Purge 2.0, by sending local supervisors of elections the names of voters who might not be citizens. Who could disagree with the idea that only eligible citizens should vote? But there is more to the issue. First, the purge is a solution in search of a problem. The number of noncitizens registered to vote is minuscule, mostly because there is no incentive for intentional fraud. What immigrant would risk deportation for the small reward of casting one vote? In fact, “The Truth About Voter Fraud,” a 2007 report by Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, stated: “We are not aware of any documented cases in which individual noncitizens have either intentionally registered to vote or voted while knowing that they were ineligible.”

Editorials: Florida voter purge will waste money and credibility | The News-Press

Sparking howls from Democrats and the NAACP, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said last week that his office soon would begin Voter Purge 2.0, by sending supervisors of elections the names of voters who might not be citizens. Who could disagree with the idea that only eligible citizens should vote? But there is more to the issue. First, the purge is a solution in search of a problem. The number of noncitizens registered to vote is minuscule, mostly because there is no incentive for intentional fraud. What immigrant would risk deportation for the small reward of casting one vote?

Editorials: Secretaries of State: A Key Front in the Battle to Protect Voting Rights | Steve Rosenthal/Huffington Post

Across the country we are witnessing a wholesale attack by the right wing on workers, unions, women’s health, the environment, LGBT issues, civil rights, immigration and nearly every other right, protection and civil liberty that Americans hold near and dear. In recent years, Republicans have invested in and won key state legislative victories, which has resulted in lopsided redistricting that will make the work for progressives even more difficult at the state and federal level for years to come. At the cornerstone of the GOP strategy is an assault on voting rights in state after state, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in this country in decades. The right wing understands that their views are out of step with the rapidly increasing progressive majority in America — women, people of color, union members, LGBT and young voters. And the only way they can win is by attempting to prevent this new progressive majority from voting. If we are to turn things around, finding new ways to defend fair and equal access to the ballot must be a top priority for progressives.

Florida: Revamped voting roll scrub soon to begin | Tampa Tribune

The state will soon begin forwarding the names of suspected non-citizens on the voter rolls to local elections officials, formally kicking off the second version of Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial scrubbing program, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Tuesday. “We’ll start shortly after the first of the year, on a case-by-case basis, reviewing files and then forwarding them down to the supervisors,” Detzner said after an event closing out the state’s recognition of the 500th anniversary of Juan Ponce de Leon’s landing in Florida. The state has been working to finalize a procedure for using a federal list to vet registered voters since 2012, when it first struck a deal with the Department of Homeland Security over the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database. Now, the final steps of putting that process in place are close. Detzner’s office has sent a proposed template for a “memorandum of agreement” to the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, the organization that represents county election chiefs. The organization is expected to respond to the state over the next week or two.

Editorials: Florida governor attempts hijacking of voter rolls | TriCities.com

Gov. Rick Scott’s latest purge of Florida’s voter rolls is lurching forward, despite the skepticism and outright opposition of many county elections supervisors. True to his “tea party” roots, Scott dreams of the days when most voters were cranky, middle-aged white people, his core constituency. Up for re-election next year, the governor fears a high voter turnout, because that would mean lots of Hispanics and African-Americans standing in line to cast their ballots. They tend to vote Democrat, grim prospects for a Republican who isn’t exactly beloved in his own party. Scott’s first voter purge was a debacle. Initiated ahead of the 2012 elections, the idea was to thwart President Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates by reducing the number of Hispanic, Haitian and other foreign-born voters. Screening drivers’ licenses, the Division of Elections produced a list of about 182,000 possible non-citizens who were registered to vote. Unfortunately, the list proved worthless because the data was outdated or flat-out wrong. County officials were left exasperated and angry.

Ohio: Voting bill could lead to long lines, voter purges | MSNBC

A Republican-backed voting bill in Ohio could contribute to longer lines at the polls and make it easier to purge voters from the rolls. State lawmakers passed the legislation Wednesday – and there’s likely much worse to come. The bill itself has voting-rights advocates concerned enough. But it’s almost certain to be just the first step in a broad assault on access to the ballot box expected in the coming weeks from Republicans in Ohio, a pivotal state in presidential elections. The measure cleared the Ohio House of Representatives by a 60-33 vote Wednesday, with just two Democrats in support. It has already been approved by the Senate and now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is expected to sign it. Rob Nichols, a spokesman for Kasich, said Thursday morning that the governor is studying the bill and will announce a decision shortly.

Editorials: Stop restricting Florida voting rights | Miami Herald

Yet another flap between state officials and Florida’s county election supervisors is in the news, raising new questions about the motives of Republican Gov. Rick Scott and his appointee, Secretary of State Ken Detzner. Are they committed to making it easier for all eligible Floridians to vote or is their real goal to make it more difficult? So wondered U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, before meeting with Tampa Bay area elections supervisors on Tuesday. “I just don’t understand why the state keeps making it harder for people to vote,” he said. Good question. First, the governor signed a bill in 2011 that restricted the hours for early voting, raising the ire of county supervisors. They warned of lengthy delays for voters during the 2012 presidential election. They were so right — some voters in South Florida stood in line for eight hours just to exercise their constitutional right. That’s unconscionable. The governor and Mr. Detzner also tried to purge voter rolls before the presidential election — with disastrous results. The “purge” was so riddled with mistakes and misinformation that its instigators finally cancelled it.

Virginia: Chesterfield County Registrar in Legal Battle After Refusing to Purge Voters | WRIC

Chesterfield County Registrar Larry Haake is in a legal battle after refusing to purge thousands of voter names. Before this year’s election, he and other registrars were told to erase the names of people who weren’t legally allowed to vote in Virginia. The Chesterfield County Registrar refused until after the election, claiming the list was full of errors. Two groups are now threatening legal action, and demanding he clean up the rolls. True the vote is an organization that says its goal is to protect the rights of legitimate voters and when they heard that the Chesterfield County Registrar has not complied with the State Board of Elections by purging thousands of voters from the rolls, they threatened legal action. But the Registrar says he’s the one who is protecting the voters.

Florida: Detzner continues to push voter purge by a different name | Miami Herald

The Secretary of State doesn’t call his plan to remove ineligible voters from the rolls a “purge” or “scrub.” “List management” is Ken Detzner’s preferred terminology. But the plan is still raising the ire of Democrats, and supervisors of elections continue to express concerns. Many Democrats believe that Detzner is trying to solve an issue that doesn’t exist while ignoring more pressing elections and voting issues. “Has there been a clamoring from supervisors?” Rep. Mike Clelland, D-Lake Mary, asked during Tuesday’s House Ethics and Elections Subcommittee hearing.

Florida: Elections Supervisors Key to Any Florida Voter Purge Effort | Sunshine State News

As the state readies to launch a new effort to scrub suspected noncitizens from the voter rolls, one key question remains: How many county supervisors of elections will join the effort after they essentially torpedoed a similar purge last year? Speaking to the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Monday, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said the process this time would be helped along because it uses the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database. SAVE is comprised of data from several federal agencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard, and state officials say it will be more reliable than last year’s attempt based largely on data from driver’s licenses. “SAVE has really been a game-changer when it comes to list maintenance,” Detzner said.

Virginia: 38,000 Voters Removed from Virginia’s Voter Rolls | State of Elections

On Friday October 18, a federal district judge in Virginia’s northern district rejected the Democratic Party’s request for an injunction blocking the removal of 38,000 voters from the Virginia voter rolls. Democrats contended that the lists used to remove voters are inaccurate. The road to this case emerged in the spring of 2013, when the state board of elections, in an attempt to combat voter fraud, decided to examine the Virginia voter rolls to weed out voters also registered in other states. The purge was conducted using a program called Crosscheck, which matches Virginia’s rolls against voters registered in other states. Crosscheck revealed 308,000 Virginia voters with duplicate registrations. Twenty-five states use this program. Democrats contend that it is “deeply flawed.” The decision to remove voters from the rolls resulted from Virginia state code “§ 24.2-404(4) and the newly enacted §§ 24.2-404(10) and 24.2-404.4 effective July 1, 2013. These statutes collectively require the State Board of Elections” (SBE) to coordinate with other states to identify and remove duplicate voter registrations to avoid voter fraud, explained Secretary of State Board of Elections Don Palmer in an interview with State of Elections (SOE). The board then voted “to refer any alleged double voting” to the office of the Attorney General, headed by gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli.

Ohio: Efforts to clean up statewide voter database lead to just four duplicates on the books for 2013 election cycle | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Efforts to clean up Ohio’s database of 7.7 million registered voters succeeded in eliminating all but four duplicate entries for this election cycle, the secretary of state’s office said Tuesday. Secretary of State Jon Husted has touted his office’s efforts to improve the voter database since he took office. The database, which was established in 2004, contained more than 340,000 duplicate records in January 2011. “Maintaining accurate and up-to-date voter rolls is an ongoing process that is important in helping to ensure greater security and more efficiency in the administration of elections in Ohio,” Husted said.

Florida: Detzner says voter-rolls purge will be done right this time | The Florida Current

Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Monday the coming purge of noncitizens from Florida voter-registration rolls will be “case-management work,” double-checked by at least two Division of Elections workers before verification with a federal database. Detzner told reporters at the Capitol he has no starting date for the statewide search for ineligible voters — which has drawn harsh criticism from Florida Democrats, who call it a thinly disguised attempt at “suppressing” minority voters. An attempt at purging the rolls last year, directed by Gov. Rick Scott, fizzled amid the same partisan accusations. This time, Detzner said, the state will work with a federal Department of Homeland Security database known as “SAVE” that was not made available to the state last year. SAVE stands for “Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements,” and Detzner said county elections supervisors are working with his department on details for security clearances so their staff can tap into the system. “I don’t really have a time schedule. This is case-management work, so you manage one case at a time,” Detzner said.

Editorials: Florida voter purge do-over remains a bad idea | Paula Dockery/Tallahassee Democrat

Here we go again. As we gear up for another election, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner has announced another attempt at purging the state’s voter rolls of non-U.S. citizens. Hark back to last year’s voter purge debacle, in which the state’s list of targeted non-U.S. citizens began at 182,000, shrank to 2,600, and was further reduced to 198. The county supervisors of election stopped the effort shortly before voting started for the presidential election. A mere 85 of Florida’s 12 million registered voters were removed from the rolls — hardly a matter requiring drastic action or worth risking disenfranchisement. Furthermore, it is unclear whether any of those individuals had actually voted. The 2012 voter purge was marred by faulty lists, heavy-handedness from Tallahassee, a disregard for the county election supervisors and a plethora of lawsuits and costly legal actions. Many supervisors were embarrassed to be part of the state’s sloppy and ill-timed efforts.

Editorials: Subtracting and Adding to Virginia’s Voter Rolls | Lynchburg News Advance

At about the same time last week that Gov. Bob McDonnell was restoring the rights of felons to vote, the State Board of Elections was removing voters from local voting lists across the state. The odor of politics is much stronger in the actions taken by the elections board. With respect to the general elections coming up in two weeks, the timing couldn’t be worse. McDonnell said last week that the civil rights of more than 6,800 Virginians have been restored during his tenure, including 1,577 since July 15 when he began automatically restoring rights for non-violent felons on an individual basis. Administration officials were said to be scrambling in recent weeks to restore rights to as many non-violent felons as possible before last week’s deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 5 elections.

Virginia: Judge denies injunction in voter lawsuit | Associated Press

A federal judge on Friday rejected a request from Virginia Democrats who sought an injunction requiring the State Board of Elections to reinstate nearly 40,000 registered voters who were recently purged from the rolls. County registrars conducted the purge recently on orders from the Republican-controlled elections board in Richmond, based on evidence from a multi-state database that the voters had subsequently registered in other states. The Democratic Party of Virginia says the list used to conduct the purge was riddled with errors. At Friday’s hearing in U.S. District Court, the party argued that local officials were using different standards to determine whether a voter’s name should be purged, and the disparities violate requirements for uniformity that the U.S. Supreme Court outlined in its landmark 2000 Bush v. Gore decision. Lawyer Marc Elias said local jurisdictions received a list of more than 57,000 voters currently registered in Virginia who had subsequently registered out of state. The registrars were told the list’s accuracy had been verified but they should use their “best judgment” in making the ultimate determination of whether to purge a voter. Elias said some registrars took the list and purged everyone. At least one county registrar refused to purge anyone. Other counties made their own determination. The process “leads to the weighing of some people’s votes and the discounting of others on a geographical basis,” Elias told Judge Claude Hilton.

Editorials: Virginia’s voter purge must stop | Tram Nguyen/Richmond Times-Dispatch

With just two weeks remaining before voters go to polls to elect the state’s next governor, Virginia’s State Board of Elections is engaged in an ill-advised effort to purge voters from the registration rolls. While all agree that it is important that Virginia election officials maintain an up-to-date registration list, this hurried review undertaken immediately before a major statewide election is not the way to ensure a fair and appropriate election process. As history has shown us, when politicians purge lists this close to an election, mistakes invariably happen and valid citizens may be denied their right to vote. In an attempt to engage in list maintenance, Virginia is participating in a data-matching program known as the Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program (IVCP). The IVCP collects registration data from all participating states (including each voter’s full name, date of birth, address and, if provided, the last four digits of her or his Social Security number). The IVCP then attempts to match the records to identify any duplicates, and makes the results of this matching effort available to each participating state.

Editorials: Florida voter purge will repeat mistakes | Robert M. Brandon/Orlando Sentinel

Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s attempt to establish confidence in Florida’s upcoming purge of voters has raised more questions than it answers. Rather than providing information on how this round of purges protects the integrity of the voter rolls, his so-called Project Integrity tour has proved that this voter-list-maintenance process lacks transparency, support and validity. Throughout his meetings with supervisors of elections and the public, Detzner and his staff did not answer many important questions on how the state plans to remove suspected noncitizens from the voter rolls while not repeating the same mistakes of the past. Despite Project Integrity’s façade of explaining the purge process and touting its validity, several supervisors of elections expressed concern with the use of the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database and the process of carrying out this purge. Many questions remained unanswered, such as what the potential cost will be and what the procedure will be to correct wrongly targeted voters.

Virginia: Election officials purging almost 40,000 voters | Washington Post

The Virginia Board of Elections has purged more than 38,000 names from its voter rolls just weeks before Election Day, despite serious concerns from local election administrators that many of those voters are still eligible to cast a ballot. The purge comes a few months after the board said it would use several databases to find voters who were now ineligible to vote, either because they had been convicted of a felony or moved out of state. But after the board sent an initial list of voters who would be purged to local election administrators, those administrators found what they said were hundreds of voters who shouldn’t be removed. On Oct. 3, the state Democratic Party filed paperwork seeking an injunction to halt the purge. But on Tuesday, the Board of Elections said it had already nixed 38,870 names from voter rolls after county registrars reviewed the initial lists. Another 11,138 eligible voters will remain active on the rolls after county registrars reviewed the state lists. And almost 7,300 will be designated “inactive,” meaning they must cast provisional ballots on Election Day, ballots that will only be counted after their eligibility is verified.

Editorials: Florida voter purge a bad idea | Miami Herald

Here we go again. Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner want to conduct another purge of Florida voter rolls. Their attempt to purge the rolls of noncitizens in 2012 was a complete flop. Florida’s Division of Elections, which Mr. Detzner oversees, botched the purge, which was conducted in advance of a presidential election, raising justified questions about the timing, and with little evidence that a clean-up was needed. It alienated voters and angered most election supervisors who oversee voter rolls in the state’s 67 counties. Using Florida driver license information, state officials initially came up with 182,000 potential noncitizens who were registered to vote. That number was whittled down to 2,600 and then to a measly 198, with county elections supervisors finding many errors. Snagged as noncitizens were U.S. military veterans, including one who fought at the Battle of the Bulge. State officials finally backed down and suspended the effort.

Virginia: State kicks 40K off voter rolls over Democrats’ objection | The News Leader

Virginia elections officials say they have already purged nearly 40,000 names from the voter rolls, despite an ongoing lawsuit filed by Democrats seeking to keep those voters registered. The Democratic Party of Virginia filed suit in federal court earlier this month over plans to purge as many as 57,923 names ahead of November’s gubernatorial election between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli. State officials pushed for the purge based on evidence from a multistate database that the voters had subsequently registered in other states. Democrats say the list is riddled with errors. Democrats are seeking an injunction that would order the purged voters restored to the rolls. A U.S. District Court judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday.

Editorials: Florida must be accurate this time on check of voter eligibility | Bradenton Herald

The integrity of America’s elections is paramount to our democracy. As Florida prepares to undertake another purge of voter rolls, though, last year’s botched attempt at cleansing registration records of noncitizens cannot be duplicated. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner just finished a tour of the state to try to ensure the public that officials would perform better this time — and not send county elections supervisors flawed lists of eligible voters and minorities. Detzner’s just ended “Project Integrity” tour hinged on the admission of fault in 2012 and the promise of more solid data this time. But there’s reason to suspect another debacle.

Pennsylvania: State joins coalition to clean up voter rolls | TribLIVE

Pennsylvania has joined a multi-state alliance that aims to clean up voter rolls by identifying people registered in more than one state and dead people who remain on registration lists. A mobile society makes it “important that election officials use available tools to make sure only legally registered individuals vote,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele said in August when Pennsylvania joined. About half of all states, led by Kansas, belong to the coalition, which cross-checks voters’ names. States compile registration lists at the end of each year to check for duplicates.

Virginia: Democrats fight purge of voter rolls ordered weeks before election | Washington Times

Election officials across Virginia are grappling with how to follow through with a directive from the State Board of Elections to purge up to 57,000 registered voters from the state rolls — a move that has prompted a lawsuit from the Democratic Party of Virginia and outright defiance by at least one registrar. The state, working this year for the first time as part of a multistate program intended to validate voters, says it is required by law to conduct maintenance on voter lists and is not canceling voters but directing local registrars to review registrants carefully. The program provides information to election boards about voters who are registered in more than one state. But the timing of the move — weeks before the state’s gubernatorial election — has raised eyebrows. The state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit this month and asked a federal court for an injunction. A high number of registered voters and a large turnout generally are considered to be advantages for Democrats. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 18 — three days after the voter registration deadline passes in Virginia.

Florida: Voter purging in Florida and Virginia leads to lawsuits | Facing South

We’re a little under a month away from Election Day, which for some means time to prepare for early voting. For others, it means time to start purging names from voter rolls. Two Southern states, Florida and Virginia, are facing lawsuits after launching (or in Florida’s case, relaunching) controversial programs that could lead to thousands of voters’ names getting stripped from voting lists. In Virginia, the purging has already started. Voters from these states who may have failed to update their voter registration information — or who ended up on the purge lists by mistake — might show up at the polls during early voting or Election Day only to find that they can’t vote. This was a problem last year in Florida that civil rights advocates thought they had resolved. Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner started a purge program last summer. They tried to use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which tracks welfare benefits for immigrants, but DHS would not allow it. So instead they turned to state driving records.

Virginia: Chesterfield registrar delays purge of voter rolls | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Democratic Party of Virginia is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the State Board of Elections and the commonwealth’s 132 local registrars from purging names from their voter registration lists. The move, less than a month before statewide elections, comes ahead of the Oct. 15 deadline to register to vote. A judge will hear the injunction request Oct. 18 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The purge list of 57,000 voters — broken down by locality and provided to local registrars by the State Board of Elections — is “replete with errors” and includes thousands of voters who reside in Virginia and who are lawfully registered to vote, according to a memorandum filed late last week in support of the Democratic Party’s motion. The State Board of Elections said in a statement that it is required by federal law to “conduct list maintenance activities to ensure the accuracy of the voter rolls.” It says it does not cancel voters by itself but directs local registrars to “carefully review all data” to ensure it properly cancels registrations.